Delegate Skinner goes too far with partisanship

November 2, 2013

On Oct. 24, a friend and I attempted to attend a meeting sponsored by the Democrats of Jefferson County titled "Running for office." The website listed it as follows: "Thursday, Oct. 24, 7:30 p.m.: JCDA Meeting-Running for Office. Learn the basics about how to run for local office with Delegate Stephen Skinner and JCDEC member Phil McCarley."

The event was being held in one of the county commission meeting spaces in Charles Town. Having attended one of these types of meetings in the past sponsored by We the People of WV (WTPWV), which was actually held on private property, I had assumed this meeting to be a non-partisan informational type seminar on the logistics and legal requirements to run for public office. When we arrived, there were about a dozen people already there, including County commissioner Dale Manuel and Lynn Widmyer and appointed Sheriff of Jefferson County, Pete Dougherty. Several others arrived after us. When Steven Skinner arrived, he informed the group that this "workshop" was for Democrats only and that you must be a registered Democrat to attend. When one person asked if independents could stay, the answer was no and that they would be verifying your party affiliation against the voter rolls. At that point, 11 or 12 people got up and left the meeting.

I found this very curious and did a quick check on the county commission website and found this concerning public meeting rooms policy: "All meetings shall be open to the public." What concerns me is that an elected delegate who claims to support equality for all would hold a public meeting where more than 50 percent of the county populace is not invited to attend. This sounds very discriminatory to me. It also seemed odd that none of the county commissioners who were in attendance and must have known the policy on public meeting space said anything to stop this discriminatory action.

If we continue to be this partisan in our own community, then I personally don't hold out much hope for us coming together at a state, let alone federal, level to solve our issues.